Chief Justice John Roberts on Wednesday referred ethics complaints about the Supreme Court’s newest associate justice, Brett Kavanaugh, to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Colorado.

The complaints, related to comments Kavanaugh made during his contentious confirmation hearings last month, were originally filed with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, where Kavanaugh served as a federal judge before his confirmation on Saturday. Roberts made the request in a letter to Chief Judge Timothy Tymkovich of the 10th Circuit, which also covers Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming.

An appointee of President George W. Bush, Tymkovich is also on the list of President Donald Trump’s possible Supreme Court picks that included Neil Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, who are both now confirmed justices.

Part of the reason for the transfer could be related to the fact that Merrick Garland, chief judge of the D.C Circuit, serves on a committee that handles such complaints. Garland was chosen by President Barack Obama to serve on the Supreme Court, but Senate Republicans blocked his nomination.

Judge Karen Lecraft Henderson, who also serves on the D.C Circuit, said in a statement on Saturday that complaints had been filed against Kavanaugh, and she characterized them as related to comments he made during his confirmation hearings and not any of his conduct as a federal judge.

Under federal law, any person can file a complaint against any federal judge in the circuit he or she sits on. Those complaints are then reviewed, and if found to have merit, a special committee then investigates any allegations further.

Kavanaugh was sworn in on Saturday shortly after his confirmation and began hearing Supreme Court cases on Tuesday.

othershoe1030 wrote:Chief Justice John Roberts on Wednesday referred ethics complaints about the Supreme Court’s newest associate justice, Brett Kavanaugh, to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Colorado.

The complaints, related to comments Kavanaugh made during his contentious confirmation hearings last month, were originally filed with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, where Kavanaugh served as a federal judge before his confirmation on Saturday. Roberts made the request in a letter to Chief Judge Timothy Tymkovich of the 10th Circuit, which also covers Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming.

An appointee of President George W. Bush, Tymkovich is also on the list of President Donald Trump’s possible Supreme Court picks that included Neil Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, who are both now confirmed justices.

Part of the reason for the transfer could be related to the fact that Merrick Garland, chief judge of the D.C Circuit, serves on a committee that handles such complaints. Garland was chosen by President Barack Obama to serve on the Supreme Court, but Senate Republicans blocked his nomination.

Judge Karen Lecraft Henderson, who also serves on the D.C Circuit, said in a statement on Saturday that complaints had been filed against Kavanaugh, and she characterized them as related to comments he made during his confirmation hearings and not any of his conduct as a federal judge.

Under federal law, any person can file a complaint against any federal judge in the circuit he or she sits on. Those complaints are then reviewed, and if found to have merit, a special committee then investigates any allegations further.

Kavanaugh was sworn in on Saturday shortly after his confirmation and began hearing Supreme Court cases on Tuesday.

In an almost party-line vote, senators voted this weekend to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. The FBI inquiry into Kavanaugh’s alleged sexual misconduct, Republicans tell us, was rigorously conducted, and no evidence corroborating accusations by Christine Blasey Ford and Debbie Ramirez was found. The real problem, Republican Sen. Todd Young of Indiana says, are partisan Democrats on a “search and destroy mission” to undermine Kavanaugh.

In reality, the FBI investigation was a joke. I know because I tried to help FBI and was rebuffed.

I went to Yale with Kavanaugh, lived in the same residential halls, and graduated with him in 1987. The alleged incident between Kavanaugh and Ramirez, another classmate, occurred during 1983-1984 in a first floor “common room” in entryway “B” of Lawrance Hall. I lived on the first floor of an adjacent entryway (“A”). Kavanaugh lived in entryway “D.”

Many of us who lived in Lawrance Hall during 1983-1984 approached the FBI last week offering help with its inquiries. I promised a list of names of people who may have attended the party at which Ramirez claims to have been assaulted. The FBI never returned my call. Based on what has now been revealed about the FBI report, I do not believe that the FBI contacted people on that list.

Other classmates had far more valuable information to provide. One can corroborate that he heard about the incident with Ramirez right after it occurred from a classmate. The FBI never returned his calls, either. A theologian at one of our nation’s leading universities, he did not “search and destroy.” He just wanted a proper look at the allegations so that we all could reach our own conclusions on the basis of facts, not hearsay and partisan mudslinging.

The FBI seems to have interviewed only 11 possible witnesses relevant to both Ford’s and Ramirez’s allegations. Who made the decision to limit the inquiry’s scope? The White House and Senate Republicans. Not surprisingly, the FBI was kept from following up on a long list of possible witnesses provided by Ramirez.

Despite Young’s claims, this was not a “thorough” FBI investigation. It was a political con job. Now Young is trying to get Hoosiers to buy into that con.

Likely under pressure from President Donald Trump and the Senate GOP leadership, the FBI ignored the information my classmates and I tried to provide. Trump and the GOP leadership had already made up their mind about Kavanaugh. Like Young, many previously announced that they would vote to confirm Kavanaugh regardless of the FBI’s findings. And then they helped rig the process so that the rest of us would never learn what we need to know.

Young and other GOP leaders hope to cover up their shenanigans by attacking those of us who wanted to get to the bottom of things. In fact, it is Young, Trump, and GOP Senate leaders who engaged in “search and destroy” against defenders of an impartial, thorough investigation.

The result? A new Supreme Court justice tainted because millions still do not know what to make of the accusations against Kavanaugh. A proper FBI investigation might have put Americans’ worries to rest. But Young and his GOP buddies made sure that investigation never happened. And now they add insult to injury by attacking patriots who care about their country and one of its great institutional pillars, the Supreme Court.

William E. Scheuerman is a political science professor at Indiana University (Bloomington) and a member of the Yale class of 1987. This column originally appeared in the Indy Star.

It is ignorance on steroids.....why is anything relevant about his high school or college that it becomes a subject for an FBI investigations.....two room mates did not get along.....big deal. There is no way the democrats can win with this mob mentality on full display. I hate Trump, but I want nothing to do with these crazy mob distractions which do not amount to a hill of beans. There are consequences from elections.......focus on the elections.

2seaoat wrote:It is ignorance on steroids.....why is anything relevant about his high school or college that it becomes a subject for an FBI investigations.....

Because he said, while testifying before congress to get the job he was handed -- a job which depends on honesty -- that he didn't do things... which other people say he did.

If I have a job interview and I say "I have a completely clean driving record," and they find out later that actually I've wrecked three cars and have D.U.I.s and was involved in a hit-and-run, wouldn't they get me out of that job... not necessarily for my driving, but because I misrepresented it to potential employers when asked about it?

There's more than one factor with Kavanaugh -- one, is did he sexually assault someone? I don't think anyone on the highest court in the land should have done such a thing... and especially not have done it and got away with it, because what screwed-up view of justice would such a person have? Personally, I believe he did assault those women. But that's just my opinion and we'll never be able to prove he did, or that he didn't, which is one reason he's always going to be a tainted candidate. But, for the sake of argument, let's dispense with the sexual assault allegations (even though that's a hell of a thing to have to dispense with). We'll say he didn't

That still leaves the question of his drinking and how he's represented it. Would someone who got drunk a lot in college be ineligible for the Supreme Court? No. As long as he doesn't still have a drinking problem, who cares what he did in college and high school. Not important. But, if during his job interview process he claims he wasn't a blackout drunk, and various people who knew him then say, "Well, that's a bunch of horseshit, I saw him incoherent and doing things he didn't remember the next day all the time," then that IS an issue -- not an issue about drinking, but about lying about it.

Which, again, is always going to make him a tainted justice who will cause the integrity of the court to remain in doubt. And that's on top of his "it's all a conspiracy by the Clintons and the left-wing who are out to get me" ranting, which seriously brings his lack-of-bias into question. How's anybody supposed to just trust this numbfuck, when he shows such bad self-control? He even had to apologize for his behavior in an op-ed the next day... and for another incident (that ill-chosen snarky shit to Klobuchar) even during the hearing. And there's also the thing about Kavanaugh being shot up to the top of Trump's list after Kavanaugh said sitting presidents shouldn't be indicted; it certainly makes it look like that's the reason subject-of-an-investigation Trump wanted him so badly. There are a lot of reasons why people are always going to remain divided on this asshole, and the court's already lost the trust of a lot of people.

That's what the congress bought when they picked this guy -- an undermining of the public's ability to trust one of the three branches of government. But, it's settled now, he's in, they made their bed, so I don't really know what good it'd do to keep investigating him. We just have a Supreme Court whose integrity is specious now -- the chance to avoid that is passed already, so, it is what it is. They can try to put the toothpaste back in the tube, but they can't. What they have to do now is learn to work with a mess they created and a country where a lot of people are never going to trust their main arbitrators of "justice." They did it because they could. I don't think any person with a realistic grasp of the situation -- whatever their stance on Kavanaugh himself -- can claim that it's a situation that'll make America "better," though. Fact is, even if you like him, a sizeable percentage of the country never will. That's not healthy for the court. And it's not a purely partisan thing, either, because Gorsuch is conservative and he faced no such controversy. The situation could have been avoided. Trump chose not to... because he doesn't give a good goddamn about anything except dividing America to make his cultish base more tribal and mistrustful of the "other." Installing this pick helped that, even if it hurt everything else.

a sizeable percentage of the country never will. That's not healthy for the court.

Last time I checked a sizeable percentage of the country has hated the Supreme Court, and the court has been as healthy as it ever has been. It is simple. The Judge is going to be an honorable Supreme Court Justice.

A major concern with the investigation highlighted in this piece is that it could effectively sanitize the appointment of Justice Kavanaugh if the court finds no wrong doing. We should recall that this review is being done without the thousands of documents requested by the Democrats from Kavanaugh's time in the Bush White House, which Democrats claim demonstrate that Kavanaugh committed perjury. Furthermore, this investigation could potentially immunize him from further examination and even undermine subsequent investigations by other investigative bodies, such as the House Judiciary Committee, which could review his conduct in a more objective light. -PAUL/RSN

Chief Justice John Roberts is referring ethics complaints against new Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh to federal judges in Colorado and neighboring states.

The complaints deal with statements Kavanaugh made during his confirmation hearings. They were filed originally with Kavanaugh’s old court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Roberts took no action on them while Kavanaugh’s nomination was pending. He received the first three of 15 eventual complaints on Sept. 20, a week before Kavanaugh’s angry denial of a sexual assault allegation by Christine Blasey Ford.

It’s possible the complaints will never be investigated if the lower-court judges determine they have no jurisdiction over a Supreme Court justice under the judiciary’s ethics rules. The judges may be forced to conclude “that intervening events have rendered the allegations moot or make remedial action impossible,” said Arthur Hellman, an ethics professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

Another ethicist, Stephen Gillers of New York University, disagreed that the complaints are moot. Kavanaugh remains a federal judge and the complaints “allege misconduct that occurred while Kavanaugh was on the D.C. Circuit and subject to the Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges. Any violation of the Code does not disappear because he is now on another federal court,” Gillers said in an email.

But Gillers said the complaints “may be found not to be meritorious in the end.”

The judiciary’s rules allow members of the public to lodge complaints about federal judges. They typically are dealt with by experienced judges in the courthouse or region where a judge serves. Judges who receive complaints have a range of options that include dismissing them out of hand, having local judges investigate them or asking Roberts, in his capacity as head of the federal judiciary, to assign the complaints to judges in a different part of the country.

Roberts assigned the complaints to the ethics council of the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to deal with the complaints, according to a letter posted Wednesday on the D.C. Circuit’s website.

The first public word of the complaints came Saturday when D.C. Circuit Judge Karen Henderson acknowledged that complaints about Kavanaugh had been filed. They only “seek investigations ... of the public statements he has made as a nominee to the Supreme Court,” Henderson said in a statement. Details of the complaints have not been made public.

Merrick Garland, the chief judge of the D.C. Circuit, typically deals with ethics complaints, but he apparently stepped aside from complaints against Kavanaugh. Garland had been nominated to the Supreme Court by President Barack Obama, but Senate Republicans never acted on the nomination.

Roberts’ letter was sent to Judge Timothy Tymkovich, the 10th Circuit’s chief judge. Tymkovich was on President Donald Trump’s list of possible Supreme Court nominees.